The AchyBreaky Black Hole Heart of Neil McCormick
by HMS Jones
Summary: For the LJ Inception Kink Meme. Arthur wasn't always known as Arthur. Once upon a time he had been Neil McCormick. And the teams new mark was a very faithful customer of Neil's. Eames/Arthur
1. Chapter 1

Author: Chipmunki

Rating: M

Summary: For the LJ Inception Kink Meme. Inception/Mysterious Skin Crossover.

Arthur wasn't always known as Arthur. Once upon a time he had been Neil McCormick. And the team's new mark was a very faithful customer of Neil's. When the team enter his subconscious, his dreams are about the nights he spent with Neil and the things he did to him. Bonus if the mark was into extra kinky stuff and liked hurting Neil, maybe left a physical scar or two and left a lot more mental scars.  
Cue massive angst from Arthur and a lot of h/c Eames/Arthur. Sex is optional.

Warning: Slash, rape, abuse and the general not-for-children content that comes from being connected to 'Mysterious Skin' – also bad language.

oOo

Arthur is hovering over the mark. He looks worried, although the frown barely grazes his features. To another person he would look merely thoughtful, but Dom has known him for years, since before he knew his wife. He _knows _him. Something is wrong.

He wonders if it has anything to do with how he found Arthur, who was going by Neil then. He had been young, with darker hair and a lax, seductive, detached way of living. He had been grieving then, for a friend who had been killed on the subway home. A Wendy something. When drunk he had called her his soul mate.

He can't help but wonder, because that is the person he is, what sort of bearing it will have on the extraction they are supposed to be pulling, which is only the name of a mistress the wife thinks he is employing.

oOo

Arthur's thoughts are focused on the mark. He swears he can recognise him from somewhere and the dark, unhappy, something-bad-is-going-to-happen, horror movie film feelings only grow the more he ponders it. He knows from his own digging that this man had a taste for prostitutes although the actual sex is undefined. Ariadne claimed that as he was married they must had all been female, but the part of him that is Neil knows that just because he is married to a woman doesn't mean he doesn't like to pay to fuck teenage boys up the ass on the side.

He wonders if he was one of those teenage boys, if this man was the guy in the white sedan or the john in the blue corsa that came every Wednesday night at seven. But there are no indications that the mark ever went to Hutchinson, Kansas, so it was probably one of his New York customers.

Even though the wariness grows every second he remains near this man, his face doesn't ring any bells so Arthur turns, goes back to his desk and tries to figure out if their paths have ever crossed.

Try as he might, he finds nothing.

oOo

They go in bare hours later. With a job such as this they need a forger, and Eames volunteers to be back with the team. Yusef follows. And Arthur wishes they hadn't, he feels sick at the thought of going into this man's mind and the thought of Eames being there and calling him Darling and getting on his nerves so much only makes it worse.

When the needle slips into skin and he begins to sink into artificial sleep he feels like he cannot breathe.

The mindscape they are in is like a cleaner version of New York. Everything is just as loud and toxic and grimy. Except the dirt is less black and in real life, when the cabbies stick their heads out to scream at the boys on their messenger bikes they use a lot more profanities. The hustle and bustle is newer somehow and reminds Arthur of when he first came to New York. He had been prepared for a better life. It is not surprising that Ariadne is more naive then he ever was.

oOo

Arthur recognises the house the second he sees it and even though he is not the architect of this dream he knows his fear is affecting it when it begins to rain cereal. Then as it gets heavier, yellow flashes of shampoo bottles falling onto heads.

Arthur is frozen. He is only taken into the house by Cobb, grabbing him and hissing in his ear "What the hell is wrong with you Arthur?"

He doesn't respond, doesn't have to, the echoing of a word inside the house distracts Cobb into letting him go. Arthur feels phantom pain lancing up his spine when he hears the word, feels a warm splatter of cum dripping down his cheek bones and the cool spray of the shower onto his bleeding head. It resonates in his ears now just as heavily as it did that day.

"SLUT, SLUT, SLUT, SLUT, SLUT, SLUT, SLUT, SLUT, SLUT, SLUT, SLUT, SLUT, SLUT"

With every word the house shakes a little, but that does not deter the group from moving upstairs, closer to the sounds, closer to Arthurs secret, closer to the room where he is getting raped by a man who didn't even bother to pay him.

Arthur finally finds his voice. It comes out quietly at the beginning, but soon he is shouting.

"STOP! You... you can't go up there! We need to leave it isn't safe! It isn't safe!" he feels like he is having a panic attack, fear and paranoia clawing at his lungs, making it hard for him to breathe. He observes the irony of it. It is when he is at the most composed time in his life that he has this outburst, even when he was fucked up, black hole for a heart Neil McCormick he never did anything like this. Even when he was secretly getting his dick sucked beneath the table he was calm.

Ariadne looks confused, as does Eames, but Cobb looks like he might know why Arthur is freaking out, and that kills him. To think that his boss, the man he respected above all else might know what is happening to him up in that dirty bathroom makes him want to vomit. What is worse, Eames seems to be having some sorrowful epiphany. He flashes back to the time in the briefing he told the team this man was incredibly violent and to stop Eames before he comes to the correct conclusion, shoots him between the eyes.

Ariadne is screaming, but he can still hear himself shouting about the danger and the cold hard continuous thud of the word slut beneath it all.

He shoots Ariadne next. Cobb takes one look at him and shoots himself in the head.

Arthur kills himself. The repetitive calling of "SLUT" closing in around him in the seconds before all turns to black and he wakes up.

oOo

Arthur has always been the quickest riser in the group, so he has caught up by them by the time he opens his eyes. They all seem to sit up together, three full of answers and one full of the humiliating sensation of bile rising up his throat. Yusef is only confused. He quickly jerks out of the way when Arthur barrels past him, aiming for the toilets. Then turns back to the team, confusion evident on his face, as the sound of violent retching fills all of their ears.


	2. Chapter 2

Author: Chipmunki

Rating: M

Summary: For the LJ Inception Kink Meme. Inception/Mysterious Skin Crossover.

Arthur wasn't always known as Arthur. Once upon a time he had been Neil McCormick. And the team's new mark was a very faithful customer of Neil's. When the team enter his subconscious, his dreams are about the nights he spent with Neil and the things he did to him. Bonus if the mark was into extra kinky stuff and liked hurting Neil, maybe left a physical scar or two and left a lot more mental scars.  
Cue massive angst from Arthur and a lot of h/c Eames/Arthur. Sex is optional.

Warning: Slash, rape, abuse and the general not-for-children content that comes from being connected to 'Mysterious Skin' – also bad language.

oOo

Arthur is gripping the sink so hard his knuckles hurt. He is here in this moment. Now. 27 years old. In an expensive suit. Arthur. Arthur. Arthur.

He is not 16 again. Curled on the bathroom floor, naked and aching all over. He can't feel the blood and cum leaking obscenely out of his ass. He isn't bruised or bloody. He doesn't hunker down in a corner and pull his best friends t-shirt to his nose to smell a purer smell, to wash that man out of his nostrils and be reminded of home.

He is at the warehouse, with his team and none of this is happening. None of it at all.

oOo

Eames doesn't like to advertise it, but he has been in love with Arthur since he met him. The thought of someone hurting the boy he loved made him want to murder someone. And considering the situation in which Arthur had his panic attack it seems best to go after the fucker that is their mark.

It is only Cobb and Yusef's full body weight which stop him from killing that sick bloody arsehole with his bare hands. Arthur was seventeen when they met, acting older than he was, wearing a suit that was a little too big for him. It made his wrists look tiny, delicate and bone thin. So worn. He made Eames want to hold his hand. God, he loves him. Why did he have to hurt?

oOo

The bathroom is closer to the warehouse doors than the IV room, so the team surround the bathroom before Arthur can leave. Ariadne stays back, she cannot fight, she is confused and if she is honest with herself, kind of scared of Arthur. The man who shot Eames and her without the bat of an eye.

Eames and Cobb take point, with Yusef behind. When Arthur comes out they are prepared, but not ready. Arthur looks terrible. His hair is free of the gel, his hands look white and strained and he is only wearing his trousers and the undershirt. Eames can see there are pale scars of bite marks on his shoulder. He wonders where they are from but tries not to think to hard into it. He is scared of the answer.

Cobb goes forward first, his hands outstretched, he seems to know what is going on. His face is placid and calming. But the hidden look of pity seems to enrage Arthur worse than Eames has ever seen him. He is more out of control than ever, his hair wild and falling into his face. It seems darker than normal without the reflected shine from the gel. Even sorrowful and angry, he still looks beautiful. Eames can hardly tear his eyes away. He looks at Arthur and the words come to mind.

_I think, if I touched the Earth,_

_It would crumble,_

_It is so sad and beautiful,_

_So tremulously like a dream._

Somewhere along the line Arthur became his world, but he doesn't dream any more. And Arthur looks like he will crumble without a touch to push him to the edge. He looks like he could fall apart without a word or a breath.

Eames thinks Arthur used to be a teenaged prostitute. That he was raped by the man they just went into the head of. That he was even more fragile than Eames thought he was, more fragile than Eames can bear. Oh, God, he wishes he was wrong.

oOo

The idea of staying here and talking to the team about what had been done to him, what he had been and been paid to do was a dull, distant idea. To abstract and unreal to even contemplate – to even be a dream constructed by the best of architects and forgers.

He's fourteen again. Pants provocatively low on his hips and no underwear to speak of. He's wearing that little silver medallion that Wendy gave him, he always thinks he shouldn't, because it's like bringing something pure into a sordid world of harsh, dizzy, lovely sex, but he never stops wearing it – maybe exactly for that reason.

He still wears it today, maybe to keep his light when he's killing men left, right and centre to steal things from some one's mind, even if they're not real he still feels like a murderer, dirty, shamed. Some things never change.

There's a man, blonde and muscled and he's all small eyed and masculine and he's exactly what Neil's looking for. He looks like the Coach. Neil imagined he would smell like him too. When he was sweaty and flushed red as he forced his way into Neil. He's fourteen again and he hates how much he missed the simplicity of it all. The sky was blue, the grass was green when it got watered, the Coach loved him and sex was the only way to recapture that.

Now he's at the tail end of twenty. He's wearing sharp suit and is a world infamous Point Man. He also feels the stirring warmth he felt when he looked at Wendy or his mom or one of the few people he ever truly cared about when he looked at his team. He wants to reach out to one of them and share all of his woes. Tell them like he never really told anyone. But that's never going to happen. After Wendy found out, that one Halloween when he made that boy bleed then moan, she never looked at him the same way and _God damnit_ it would break him to see the team like that with him. To have them meet new people and warn them away from Arthur, like he was something dangerous or infectious or dirty. Not good enough. Back when he was Neil that wouldn't have concerned him, he was high on paid for sex and the rush of drugs and booze and teenage rebellion. His own brand of apathy and self administered life style. The pleasure principle was his modus operendi and he lived by it every second. Never cautious or concerned. Just in it for the feel good factor and the reminder of love.

But sometime after New York and his revelations on Christmas, the black hole in his chest got filled up. He's terrified because he thinks the thing that filled it up is a heart. And that means he has to care.


End file.
